Borderlands Case Study

Why Borderlands?

Fanfiction.net has an entire page dedicated to gaming fan-fiction.  Considering that five other games on the site have over 20,000 stories posted (Legend of Zelda has over 20,000, Sonic the Hedgehog and Final Fantasy VII have over 30,000, and Pokémon and Kingdom Hearts have over 70,000), why did I choose to focus on Borderlands?  This game franchise, consisting of three full games and fourteen expansion packs so far, has less writers, readers, and stories than many of the other games listed.  Of its 698 stories, 71 of them have no followers, and only the top 20 stories have over 50 followers. [1] With the relatively low popularity of this game on Fanfiction.net, why bother to give it so much attention?

Obviously, it is easier to work with a game that I have played before.  Because I’ve played all three installments of the game, I am familiar with the characters, story lines, and insider language that players of this game would use.  When writers on Fanfiction.net write about “ECHO recordings” and “Claptrap,” I know what they mean.  I’m already part of their specific gaming community because I understand the discourse and language of their interactions. I’m also familiar with the characters in the game, so I understand the tropes that writers use whenever they discuss Zer0’s reclusiveness or Brick’s short temper.  (Follow the links for a brief synopsis of the plots to Borderlands and Borderlands 2.) With more access to the language of the community, I am better able to interpret how the community is interacting and why readers and reviewers leave specific kinds of feedback and comments.

More than my familiarity with the game, however, Borderlands is also a unique style of game.  As a first-person-shooter (FPS) role-playing-game (RPG), Borderlands combines elements of two normally-divided genres of gaming: FPS and RPG.  Similarly, the community defined by Borderlands players includes people who typically identity as FPS or RPG gamers.  By focusing on a crossover game like Borderlands, I have been able to look at a more diverse group of gamers.  Moreover, I have been able to look at the role of writing in FPS games, which are frequently overlooked in fan-fiction.  RPGs are by far the most popular genre for fan-fiction writing, [2] and stories from the Borderlands fandom [3] are able to combine elements from the more elusive FPS games along with the typical plots of RPG-based stories.  Fan-fiction writers for Borderlands still incorporate traditional fan-fiction conventions like possible love stories and alternative endings; however, these stories also include fight scenes and references to the characters’ unique battle skills. 

The Borderlands franchise also offers a wide variety of characters, including four main characters from the original game, six from Borderlands 2, and four from Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.  Including all of the secondary NPCs in each of the installments, fan-fiction writers are afforded the opportunity to create a multitude of interactions and stories.  While only a few writers actually open up the universe to include crossover playable characters from all three games, many writers incorporate crossover NPCs into their stories to add more depth and illustrate their knowledge of Pandora.  For instance, a writer can incorporate Tiny Tina into a story with Roland and Brick from Borderlands (Cybertronic Purgatory, 2013), and another writer can have Tiny Tina interact with Gaige from Borderlands 2 (Discar, 2013).

Finally, the popularity of this game has created a space where out-of-game literacy is continuing to expand.  In 2012, IDW publishing released four comic books to help tell the background stories of the four original playable characters.  Marketed to fans of the game and comic book enthusiasts, these comics illustrate the impact the video games have had. Borderlands: Origins #1 has even been so popular that it is already on its third printing (IDW), and IDW has even begun publishing a new Borderlands story arc that parallels some of the plot from the original game. These “origin” stories offer fan-fiction writers more information about the characters they’ve already been discussing, and it grants them access to more layers of literacy as they work to incorporate these new details into their stories.